


On the first night of our future

by thewindupbird



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 15:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16370141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindupbird/pseuds/thewindupbird
Summary: A haunted house; a bump in the night; an impulse; a morning.





	On the first night of our future

**Author's Note:**

> for H. (breadroll squeaky squeaky). Thanks for all the brainstorming. 
> 
> It's also for literalmetaphor. Partly because of the Goldfish, but mostly for literally saving my life in Japan. I'd gift you this fic, but it's not good enough
> 
> ~*~
> 
> This is a work of fiction and is in no way meant to depict the real lives of any persons involved.
> 
> This comes from a place of love. Let's boogie, boys!

There _is_ something about sleeping on the floor that Shane is a fan of, even though he’s thirty-two and maybe too old for this, but hey, he’s a fucking ghost hunter for a job — or well, okay, no, he’s a producer, but he’s _also_ a ghost hunter, so really, there’s not a lot to be said about his normality, to put it one way.  
  
To put it another way, Shane really likes sleeping on the floor because it reminds him of camping. Only instead of stars, it’s dust, and instead of campfire whiskey-coffee, it’s non-perishables in overly loud packaging.  
  
Maybe he just likes to annoy Ryan. That’s what he’s thinking, reclining on one elbow on his makeshift bed, teeth sunk just hard enough into the insides of his cheeks to keep from smiling as he makes an obscene amount of noise opening up a package of Goldfish crackers. He can _feel_ Ryan looking at him, eyebrows raised, from his own sleeping bag a couple feet away with an expression that says _Really?_  
  
Shane gets it open. A few Goldfish go flying, skittering away across the floorboards for the ghosts to eat.  
  
“Crackly packaging.” Shane says, softly observant. “Very crackly.”  
  
“Are you serious right now?” Ryan asks him, but there’s that half-hidden shiver of laughter in his voice, molten gold.  
  
Shane breathes it in. He keeps his eyes down.  
  
“You know, there’s something noble about sleeping on the floor,” he says, and holds the package out.  
  
“Noble?” Ryan says. “You know, this is a serious ghost hunt. It’s a serious show, and you’re opening _snacks_ like a six year old.” He takes the box anyway and dips his hand inside. “Are you going to start talking about wood grain now, and the quality of the plywood?”  
  
“I don’t think they make floors with plywood, Ryan,” Shane says.  
  
“Haven’t you ever heard of a plywood floor, smartass?”  
  
“Oh,” Shane laughs silently, pushes his glasses up his nose with the heel of his hand against the edge of the frames. He looks upward in time to watch Ryan watching him and feels something spark through his chest — crackling along his collarbones like cut wires.  
  
“So tell me about how sleeping on the floor is noble?”  
  
“Well—“  
  
“No, you know what, never mind, I don’t care.”  
  
Despite the constriction he feels, the blot-out dampening of his laughter, Shane grins harder. It’s a joke, he knows that. It’s not the words it’s the context. No, you know, maybe it’s the whole thing. Because if Ryan doesn’t want to hear Shane’s stupid antics, Shane isn’t sure what else he’s got. Shane is not good at being the supportive friend. He’s not good at serious conversations about feelings, or being a shoulder to cry on. He doesn’t have the frame for it, physically or mentally. Shane is just good at being witty, at making people laugh, at his ever-so-easy personability that’s more of a mask than a personality trait. A costume. It’s a guise to hide behind when he doesn’t know what to do, but there’s a point when you can’t do that anymore, with friends. He and Ryan are far, _far_ beyond that point, and so he’s left with not much else besides his brain firing a thousand thoughts a second — because he can’t fail here in the entertainment department twice, not with the cameras running, counting down milliseconds. Not with Ryan’s eyes on him.  
  
So Shane switches tracks fast. The whole thing wobbles a little as he grasps for something else, something Ryan will care about, and all he comes up with is “So you think we’ll capture any ghoulie ghouls tonight?”  
  
“I dunno why you’re asking me,” Ryan says, “You’ll have to ask them.”  
  
Shane lets himself fall back onto his sleeping bag and speaks up to the ceiling with all the conviction of a sinner casting their eyes towards heaven and all God’s mercy. “Are there any spectres in tonight?”  
  
“Any _in-_ spectres,” says Ryan.  
  
Shane furrows his brow. Then he gets it. “Ohhh!” he says, brightening, pointing a finger at Ryan. “Are there any _inspectres_ —  in? What is that, would that be ghost ghost hunters?”  
  
“Ghost detectives? D’you think that’s what _we’ll_ be?”  
  
“Oh fuck,” Shane says. “I sincerely hope that the afterlife is not just going to be me perpetually ghost hunting forever.”  
  
“You could be with me!” Ryan says in this unthinking moment. In this pure, honest rush of genuineness so that Shane has the tamp his thoughts down before they even formulate because—  
  
“Yeah, Ryan,” he says, through this quiet, half-forced laugh.  
  
They both go quiet but then Ryan, because he can’t handle silence, says quickly, “No, actually, I take that back, that would be like my own private circle of hell.”  
  
Shane looks over at him, still sitting up, all crossed legs and tight shoulders — he’s still scared in this room — and he’s looking at the camera for the bit and Shane exhales the memory of Ryan saying that — _you could be with me_ — implying forever, because it’s never gonna happen.  
  
Shane doesn’t really believe in the afterlife anyway.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___

  
Ryan can’t sleep  
  
It’s not like he expected to, but Shane is stretched out on his side about an arm’s length away as Ryan shifts and twists for the twenty-seventh time this minute in his own sleeping bag, because no matter which way he turns, his elbow or his shoulder or his hip presses painfully into the floor.  
  
Also, it’s very dark in here, and he’s got his phone brightness lowered all the way down so that he can still kinda see in the dark, and so he doesn’t wake Shane. Not that Shane couldn’t sleep through the whole freaking house crumbling to the ground (briefly, Ryan contemplates shining the phone flashlight directly into his stupid face as petty retaliation for this particular Shane talent) but he also isn’t afraid of any of the things that Ryan’s afraid of and sometimes, it’s nights like this that make Ryan wonder if his belief in ghosts really is stupid.  
  
And he hates that, that it’s fucking Shane who makes him second-guess everything he knows. Sometimes Ryan feels like Shane looks at him and sees someone else, but it isn’t that he wants Ryan to be different, it’s that he sees things in Ryan that Ryan can’t find when he looks at his own reflection in the mirror. Like he’s seeing something clearer, more defined, than Ryan can find in his own brown eyes when he pauses, heart racing, to look.  
  
And he’s tried to find it, that way that Shane looks at him. Fuck, Ryan has tried to find it in the expressions of his parents, in the casual intimacy of his long-time best friends, in the eyes of the girls he’s dated — in dark bars and sunlit theme parks and in the moments between touch and heat and release. And he can’t.  
  
Just like he can’t find a goddamn ghost.  
  
Sometimes Ryan wonders if he would find more ghosts if he didn’t have Shane. If he still had Brent or he went alone or…  But he isn’t going to kid himself. He couldn’t even do this if Shane weren’t here, always just at his back — like a shadow. Not anymore. Something clicked when Shane came on Unsolved. Like a little chunk of the universe fell into its proper place.  
  
But sometimes Ryan wishes that he didn’t know that look from Shane, because then he wouldn’t be looking for it in every other person he’s ever…  
  
Ryan lowers his phone and rubs his eyes to get the night vision back, but all he can see is the imprint reversed of whatever he was staring at without really seeing on his screen.  
  
“I heard something.”  
  
He says it without thinking, and he doesn’t even know if he has heard something, truly. He stares into the darkness waiting. Waiting.  
  
The hallway in front of him, the hallway they’ve stupidly placed their beds in front of, yawns on forever before him, threatening to swallow him up and Ryan feels fear rise like bile from his chest.  
  
“Muahaha,” Shane says in a stupid voice beside him, that isn’t his own. It’s low and resonates from his chest and—  
  
Ryan honestly nearly fucking shits himself. He drops his phone face down and they are plunged into that horrible darkness, but then Shane is laughing and shifting in his sleeping bag and Ryan’s mind catches up.  
  
“You absolute fucking piece of shit, Shane. I’m going _kill_ you—”  
  
Something touches his wrist and Ryan shouts and bats it away.  
  
“It’s me!” Shane laughs, pure delight, and all soft and soothing. Ryan hates it. Shane curls warm fingers around his wrist again and, still chuckling says, “I’m sorry, I had to.”  
  
“You’re not sorry.”  
  
“No,” Shane acquiesces.  
  
“Jesus, I thought—“  
  
“Hahaha. Oh, Jesus, is that your _pulse_?” Shane asks, fingers tightening where Ryan can _feel_ his own blood pounding, and suddenly it is uncomfortable, like it’s too strong of a pressure to be held in by his own living body. He concentrates on his breathing instead, feeling a little like he might pass out, but he can’t tell because all he can see is darkness.  
  
“Do we have a medic? Is there a medic on site?” Shane teases, because it’s just them in this dark fucking terrifying horrible haunted house.  
  
“Holy shit, dude,” Ryan says faintly, and a light comes on. Shane shines it at him carefully, not into his eyes, but enough to see him, and it’s weird for a moment. Slightly dazzled, Ryan blinks back. “I think I almost passed out.”  
  
Shane’s fingers twitch involuntarily against his wrist and Ryan knows that — the way Shane’s body sort of flinches or moves under the weight his own thoughts, or the words of others — he focuses on him. He’s still wearing his contacts but Shane is not, and he’s sort of squinting at Ryan to focus. His eyes look almost hollow-dark, but Ryan’s seen him like that far too many times, and besides, Shane’s never scared him anyway. Not _Shane_. Shane’s stupid antics on the other hand.  
  
“I’m seriously gonna kill you.”  
  
“What did you hear?” Shane asks.  
  
“Huh?” Ryan’s still breathing a little too hard.  
  
“You said you heard something.”  
  
“Oh. I dunno. I dunno what I heard.”  
  
“Hm.” The light moves, shines down the very empty, very wood-paneled hallway. “Yeah. I thought I heard something downstairs, honestly.”  
  
“Shut up, Shane.” Ryan says, too drained by the rush of adrenaline to keep doing this stupid bit.  
  
“No seriously.”  
  
He is serious. Ryan’s heart drops.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
“You ever hear that story,” Shane asks, “About the— what is it? The guy who pisses off the spirits and then they— you know… ‘I’m on the first step,’ that one?”  
  
“No he— he stole someone’s _liver_.”  
  
Shane flicks the light and holds it near his own ribcage, so he knows he’s illuminating his face from below. Maybe it’ll be a good bit for the show. “I’m on the first step, Ryan.”  
  
Ryan wrenches his wrist away from Shane, and he realizes he hasn’t let go yet. His own hand hangs in midair between them for a moment, and he flexes his fingers before pulling back. He flicks the light off.  
  
“Shane.”  
  
“I’m on the second step, Ryan.”  
  
“Fuck _you_. And it’s definitely Johnny or Bobby or something and not Ryan.”  
  
Shane lets silence descend for a handful of moments and then said “I’m on the third step,” in this harsh whisper.  
  
There is a thud.  
  
Predictably, Ryan starts screaming and Shane fumbles for the light and raises it to point down the hallway again. And then he thinks _no_. “Shut up,” he says and reaches out. “Ryan.”  
  
There’s something else, beneath the sound of Ryan’s panicking that Shane strains to hear. He turns out the light and reaches out in the darkness and it’s stubble and the scrape of teeth before Shane figures out placement and _presses_ his palm over Ryan’s mouth. Ryan jerks back and Shane tightens his grip enough to feel Ryan’s teeth slide against his fingertips through the skin of his cheek. He catches the back of Ryan’s head with his free hand and holds him in place. “Ryan shh, shut up!” Shane breathes through the darkness.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
  
Ryan barely hears him. Suddenly he’s being pushed back and for a horrible second it feels like he’s about to fall forever, vertigo rushing in around him in this blackness like pitch or hell or his worst nightmares. His hands come up, one glancing off the edge of a person’s ribcage — Shane — and Ryan’s shoulders hit the floor before that registers — that it _is_ Shane, it’s Shane. He pushes back anyway, this animal instinct not to be trapped when he’s afraid, and Shane grunts as both Ryan’s hands find his chest and push, but Shane throws his full weight into it, and Ryan’s arms shake against him before he can’t hold him up. There’s a messy clatter of limbs against limbs and sleeping bag and wood, and Shane’s saying “Sshhh, wait, listen, _listen_.” and so Ryan takes a long, shuddering breath through his nose, and does.  
  
He can’t find Shane in the dark, but he can smell him. Fuck, that sounds weird even in his own head, but it’s just this— it’s Shane. Soap and skin, that particular smell that’s individual to each person. Also his fingers smell sort of like Goldfish and like nylon from the sleeping bags, but also, beneath all that, like smoke or fog, like he’s half-made-up of something that appears, strange, from the edge of the trees in some hazy dawn.  
  
Ryan’s never placed it before. He’s never thought about it, but that thought grounds him now, because it’s real and familiar enough that his fingers don’t unfist against Shane’s chest (where they’re gripping his t-shirt, where they’re pressed painfully into the divet of his right collarbone) but they do stop pushing back.  
  
Ryan’s breath bounces back off of Shane’s palm until his lips and chin feel hot and damp, but Shane’s grip has loosened there, too. There is another sound from downstairs and Ryan tenses violently and there’s a shift. Shane’s body jolts, preparing to hold Ryan down again, one knee digging painfully against the inside of Ryan’s before sliding down between his legs. And Ryan doesn’t push back this time. He fucking listens, his heart about to explode. Apropos to basically nothing, he remembers Shane saying ‘Your hard-on exploded?’ back on the Queen Mary and sort of lets out this hysterical giggle and Shane’s palm presses down against Ryan’s lips, and suddenly Ryan wants to shake him off for different reasons.  
  
Namely because Shane playing the hero, the calm one, is fucking annoying, especially when Ryan is the one pinned beneath him. When Ryan is the one who needs to be calmed.  
  
Sometimes he hates being the only one afraid.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
  
“Hngh unff.”  
  
That’s probably ‘get off,’ Shane thinks. Ryan’s lips are dry. Shane feels them drag against the skin of his palm and it twists something in him that has nothing to do with ‘afraid.’ There’s a white noise in his head, in his ears, that he thinks might be a real noise. Like sliding, like something slithering through dust not too far away. His face is turned towards the blackness of the hallway, but something is wrong about the placement of the sound.  
  
It’s the only entrance to the room though. Not that it matters, since he can’t see a thing.  
  
Still though, that sound…  
  
He thinks, _let’s get up, check it out_ and then he thinks _isn’t there a bat around here to use or something?_  
  
Of course, there isn’t.  
  
Pretty stupid, maybe, to sleep alone overnight in these places without a single method of defense.  
  
Ryan sucks in a sharp breath against Shane’s skin, and his fingers curl around Shane’s wrist and Shane turns his face back as he and Ryan both tug his hand away together. “Shane—” Ryan says, and suddenly it clicks.  
  
_Oh_ , Shane thinks, and he wants to start laughing because of course the sound isn’t _slithering._  
  
“Oh,” Shane says, “It’s--”  
  
It’s accidental, the hitch of Ryan’s repositioning, unsettling Shane in his precarious balance over him, the bone of his knee cracking as it rolls uncomfortably against the floor. Ryan gets his forearm on the ground and pushes himself up, misjudging their distance and Shane’s mouth brushes Ryan’s as he starts to explain.  
  
_Panic._

  
It zaps through him and he goes still instead of jerking back because Shane needs to reassess. _Oops,_ he thinks, _oh boy, this is going to be hard to live down._  
  
“Sorry,” he manages on an exhaled breath that’s trying real hard for a laugh, except then Ryan’s fingers flicker from his collarbone up over the skin of Shane’s throat and he finds Shane’s mouth again.  
  
The kiss feels kind of like licking a battery, Shane thinks, all these little shocks every time it alters, because first it’s Ryan’s mouth opening under his (and so, of course, Shane kisses him back) and then it’s Ryan’s tongue, soft but purposeful and Shane hears himself make this soft, questioning sound that might also be— _Jesus, God_ —…  
  
He doesn’t pull back.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
Ryan had realized, somewhere along the way, that Shane’s fingers were still in his hair. That Shane had pushed him down with all his strength, but he’d made sure to protect Ryan’s head from the floorboards. He realizes it somewhere between his mind re-solidifying beneath this: Shane’s weight grounding him, and Shane sorting out whatever the fuck that sound was. And Ryan— Ryan doesn’t even know what it was, still. All he knows is that Shane isn’t worried anymore. All he knows is that Shane looks at him like… like he sees something in Ryan. And also that Shane is a complete fucking asshole who scares the shit out of him in almost the same breath as he protects him and Ryan’s fucking done being the frightened one.  
  
And then Shane makes this uncertain sound.  
  
Shane kisses him back, Shane lets Ryan slide his tongue into his mouth and meets it with his own once, then again, before he questions it at all.  
  
Ryan squeezes his eyes shut, preparing for the inevitable moment where one of them pulls back but it doesn’t come. Instead, Shane shifts, and Ryan hears his elbow hit the floor somewhere near his own raised shoulder, and his fingers come up into Ryan’s hair again and the kiss changes — it’s harder, open. Shane’s mouth slides open and wet over Ryan’s cheek, and it’s impossible to see in the dark when Ryan opens his eyes for a second to figure this out. There’s this awkward moment of confusion— his tongue against the stubble on Shane’s chin, his tongue sliding heavily over Shane’s lower lip.  
  
“Where the fuck--?” Ryan begins — _where the fuck are you?_

  
And Shane laughs this self-deprecating, helpless sound that Ryan doesn’t hear almost ever and doesn’t particularly like, and before Shane can say anything (Ryan hears him take that breath to start) he says “Shut up, Shane,” and gets both hands up, thumb brushing over Shane’s soft mouth accidentally in his haste, before he catches his face in his hands and kisses him again and another sound slips from Shane’s mouth into Ryan’s, and then Shane says: “Okay,”  
  
Somewhere, vaguely, Ryan thinks of all the times that Shane has just listened to him. That Shane has just done what he’s told him to, unquestioning, and Ryan wonders _how long have you…?_  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
  
This will go too far, Shane thinks.  
  
He thinks it as he drags his mouth from Ryan’s and kisses this hard, rushed line down over his cheek, his jaw, his throat — coaxing this sound from the depths of Ryan’s chest that vibrates against Shane’s mouth _Christ_. It will go further than he’s ready to take it on the floor of some house on— shit, on night vision camera, he’d forgotten.  
  
Ryan digs the fingers of both hands into Shane’s hair, something sweet about the curve of them at the back of his neck behind his ears. He doesn’t push, doesn’t coax, just holds on in this tentative way and Shane—  
  
_Oh fuck_ , he _would_. He’s got his palm tight against Ryan’s side where his ribcage ends, and it’s all muscle and tendons and warm skin beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. Shane draws back, panting fast against Ryan’s neck. He doesn’t know how to do this.  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
“Time out,” Ryan breathes upwards, towards the ceiling as soon as he feels Shane hesitate.  
  
“Yep,” Shane says, and he draws back — too slow. Ryan feels like even the beat of his blood pulls after him. He swallows a sound. Shane sits back, piece by piece they are not touching again. The room becomes so quiet and even if Shane could probably sit in silence in perpetuity, Ryan can’t. So he says “Hm,” like he’s just come across some strange but intriguing piece of evidence.  
  
Shane snorts, exhales a laugh.  
  
There’s a shifting sound. The flashlight rolls a little and Ryan feels a jolt of panic because he doesn’t know what he looks like, and he doesn’t know if he wants to see himself on film which, he’s just remembered, is still rolling. “Wait.”  
  
Shane waits. They’re both quiet, Ryan’s mind churning, and then Shane is the one to break the silence as he says “You want to, um… it’s almost five so. You want to wrap it?”  
  
“I…”  
  
“Yeah, We’ll get some shots of the sun coming up.”  
  
How long were they kissing? Fuck, obviously he’s got to cut that. And sunrise shots, they don’t get those a lot. It’ll make for a better ep. It’ll fill in the time he’s absolutely going to edit out.  
  
“Sha...” Ryan takes a steadying breath, and there are so many doubts crowding in it’s almost as bad at the darkness. “Okay.”  
  
They pack up leave the bags on the porch without really looking at one another in the dark. It’s not cold enough to see their breath, something Ryan loves aesthetically but hates physically, but it’s definitely cold enough that their hoodies and jackets aren’t warm enough; even Shane hunches his shoulders a little as they figure out which way is east with their little compass app.  
  
It’s still dark as Shane leads the way towards the treeline, and Ryan is reminded again of the way his skin smells, and the shiver that slides though him has little to do with the morning air as he takes in the long line of Shane’s too-long legs, the curve of his back as he hunches further, starting up the incline that holds the little haunted house at the bottom of it, in its protective hollow.  
  
They leave the gear where it is. There’s no one around for miles, after all.  
  
It’s darker amongst the trees, but it’s not scary out here, not like the house where the darkness was oppressive, pushing in on his eyes and ears until he felt a little like he was falling or drowning or both. The world stops feeling real, sometimes, when Ryan faces the darkness. Like the lights will come on and he’ll be completely and utterly alone.  
  
Ryan’s shivering as they pick their way through the trees. Honestly he’s been shivering since Shane drew away from him in that room. They’re struggling a little through the bracken on their way up to the outcrop and Shane’s definitely at an advantage with his long legs, but he looks so much like an absurd deer, picking his way through the tangled underbrush that Ryan has to laugh at him and Shane glances back, his profile sharp against the lightening sky and Ryan reaches out to touch him, his arm, then changes his mind at the last moment.  
  
“You look like an idiot,” Ryan says, and Shane smirks at the ground as he steps out into a clearer, grassy space, starts fiddling with the phone camera which leaves Ryan to just... be. And he’s always thought he’s sort of bad at just being unless he’s with Shane. Which he’s starting to realize means something. And Ryan doesn’t know if that’s okay. He really doesn’t fucking know if that’s okay, and it’s not even because it’s a sexuality crisis thing, damn, he’s _past_ that, he’s _been_ past it. He’s been working it through without even really realizing why, other than a vague imprint on his mind of Shane’s sleepy brown eyes and the way he always looks over the heads of all the people he towers over to find Ryan.  
  
He looks away, out over the land that stretches gently down and away from them until they are far above the changing leaves of so many trees just as the sun touches the edges of the world, or at least as far as Ryan can see.  
  
“Wish we’d brought the DSLR,” Shane says, but he frames the shot anyway.  
  
“Too late now.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
  
Shane films because its easy. The only thing that could possibly make this better would be being the sound guy again, hiding behind the camera, headphones on. But that’s not how it goes. A lot of things with Ryan have not gone as planned. Like tonight.  
  
Ryan sticks fairly close, always in his peripheral, and Shane tries not to notice the way he’s biting his nails, biting his lip. It’s distracting, and now he knows, intimately, what his mouth feels like. Now it’s more than just the crooked curve of his smile, the way he passes his fingers over his lips when he’s editing. Shane tries not to wonder how Ryan will look when he edits the footage from earlier.  
  
He wonders if Ryan will even look at it at all.  
  
The sun rises too fast, Shane feels — between one handful of rapid heartbeats and the next — and eventually he can’t use the camera as a crutch anymore. He lowers it, shuts it down before looking up at Ryan who swallows — Shane watches — before he says “Ready, Big Guy?”  
  
Shane nods, but as Ryan turns, Shane catches his arm almost like falling — like he can’t help this momentum.  
  
“Ryan—”  
  
The others will be here, soon. They’re supposed to meet them at the house, and Shane can’t help but feel like this moment is running out, and when it does he’ll be too late. But he doesn’t know what to say. Suddenly Ryan smiles and it throws him, catches him completely off guard.  
  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you lost for words before, Mister Madej," Ryan teases. "Gee, I didn’t even think it was possible.”  
  
___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___  
  
Shane does this little half grimace, and turns his head away, a little sort of twitch that’s both uncertain and dismissive. Shane tsks a little before meeting Ryan’s eyes again. “I mean,” he says, “that was some kiss.”  
  
Something expands in Ryan’s chest, breath tangling in this throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t hate it.” He watches Shane search his eyes.  
  
“Still. Sorry about your footage,” Shane hedges.  
  
Ryan makes a face, also too expressively, really making a show like he’s thinking about it. “Nah. Nope. I’m not.”  
  
“Oh— okay,” Shane says, and he’s watching him in a way that’s searching and fuck, Ryan just wants to give him... a lot. Everything. Or maybe he just wants to kiss him again. "Not sorry, then. I just, I— I’m kinda trying to feel like we fucked up somewhere back there but uh. I don’t,” Shane admits.  
  
Ryan laughs a little and Shane tugs on his sleeve, but it’s Shane who steps closer, even as he says, again, “Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t be,” says Ryan. “I’m not sorry you’re not sorry.”  
  
“So, you not sorry too?”  
  
“No, I’m not sorry.”  
  
“This conversation...” Shane laughs in that quiet way he has. “It’s uh—”  
  
“Yeah, it has the potential to become confusing.” Ryan says, but he can feel himself starting to smile as he looks up at Shane and, fuck, behind his glasses Shane’s eyes flicker to Ryan’s lips and back and Ryan considers kissing him again. Here on this fucking hilltop in the morning, their breath clouding between them.  
  
Shane reaches up and touches the edge of Ryan’s hood where it’s drawn up over his head. He tugs at it like fixing folds, but it’s too intimate. He takes this breath like he’s about to say something, and suddenly Ryan doesn’t know if he wants to hear it. Because this conversation — _will we, won’t we?_ — it’s too much for right now. He hasn’t even had a coffee yet.  
  
“I bet the others are back,” he says and Shane exhales, and Ryan hears it shake, just a little bit.  
  
“Yeah. Better get back down there.”  
  
As they make their way back through the woods, Ryan is struck by the beauty of the little house. It’s not so solitary, he realizes. Not with all these trees around, not surrounded by birdsong the way they are now. It looks like it belongs here, like it’s always been here, safe in this half-forgotten place. Ryan’s almost fond of it. Even the sounds last night don’t seem so scary.  
  
Shane steps up onto the covered porch to wait for the others to come up the drive, but Ryan’s not _quite_ fond enough of the house to hang out on the sinking porch like Shane is. He looks pretty happy up there though, Ryan thinks. He looks right, standing mostly in the shade, leaning over the railing. The sunlight just touches his forearms and his hands where he leans over the railing, his eyes on the road.  
  
He’s just Shane, still, and yet…  
  
There’s a muffled thud from inside the house, then another and Ryan starts to say “It’s just like last night, dude!” and then the sprinklers come on in the garden, soaking Ryan from the waist down. He shrieks a little and leaps onto the porch where Shane’s bent double with laughter. “Yep!” Shane laughs, “Knew it!”  
  
“Why the fuck—?!”  
  
“It’s p—", Shane wheezes, then dissolves into laughter again. "It's pipes."  
  
Ryan wipes ineffectually at his soaked sweatpants. “Who keeps _sprinklers_ way out here? They don't even have a _fridge_!”  
  
“I mean, have you seen the geraniums, Ryan?” Shane asks, just as TJ and the others appear in the car around the end of the drive. “They’re beautiful!”  
  
Shane shoulders the camera stuff and hops off the porch, starts sauntering down the drive towards the car until Ryan gives him a shove into the damp grass.  
  
“Hey— _cameras_ , Ryan!” Shane yelps, but he’s also been sufficiently soaked.  
  
“That’s fine. They’re fine,” Ryan says. “I feel vindicated now.”  
  
“Well— good, because when we get back and I change my pants, I’m going to murder you.”  
  
“No you won’t,” Ryan says, and smiles at him. Shane’s look lingers a little too long.  
  
TJ leans out the driver’s window and say, “Hey, what the fuck are you guys doing? There’s cameras in those bags you know, stop messing around.”  
  
“Boy, do I have a story for you,” Shane informs TJ delightedly, as he and Ryan both climb into the back seat. He retells the story about the thumping and Ryan’s screaming and the pipes. He tells it like he doesn’t know the taste of Ryan’s mouth or the feel of his hands in his hair and, fine, even Ryan’s laughing. And at the end Shane gives him this fleeting, private look, and God, but… Ryan feels okay about this.  
  
They’re going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this during a my ten THOUSANDTH work shift in a row (because if you want to get paid for writing, do it at your day job amirite?!) and two glasses of wine so if you ever want sweet happy ending fluffy stuff from me this is AS CLOSE AS IT'S GONNA GET. 
> 
> This is a bit of a tribute to The Shoebox Project's Halloween chapter, even though I will NEVER do that fic justice. Title and select prose also inspired by Stornoway's You Take Me As I Am. You guys have no idea how close I am all the time to writing a fucking songfic.
> 
> Happy Halloween kids, I love ya.


End file.
